Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER FEBRUARY 2019 22 INSIGHT COOLER HEADS PREVAIL VATICAN CITY — e Vatican's Swiss Guard, a mini-army that helps protect the Pope, hope to have cooler heads now they have swapped their ancient metal helmets for ones made by 3D printers, according to Reuters. e new headgear is made of thermoplastic and looks almost exactly the same as the previous versions. But the force of 110 men should fi nd the covering more comfortable because the helmets won't heat up like the metal ones, according to spokes- man Urs Breitenmoser. e previous versions also weighed two kilograms while the new ones, made in Switzerland, weigh 570 grams. SPLITTING MILLIONS GUELPH, ONT. — A group of co-workers has hit the jackpot — big time — by winning $60 mil- lion. e nine colleagues at an automotive parts plan worked the same shift on an assembly line in Guelph, Ont., and had been buy- ing lottery tickets together in the last few months of 2018 as the prize grew bigger, according to the Canadian Press. Eight of the workers describe themselves as immigrants, with some saying they plan to buy new homes or take a family trip to Disneyland. Another wants to open an Ethio- pian restaurant and yet another hopes to travel through Canada. "I've been in Canada for less than a year and so far, I've only known work,'' said Bassam Abdi. "I'm ex- cited to explore the country.'' JOKE BOMBS SOLIHULL, U.K. — A Jaguar Land Rover worker who thought it would be funny to pose in a fake suicide vest at work has, not sur- prisingly, been suspended. e in- dividual was photographed wear- ing a vest complete with Nerf gun bullets, wires and foil-wrapped boxes meant to resemble a bomb, and asked colleagues if he should "pull the string and blow it up?" according to the Daily Mail. e company said it was taking the incident "extremely seriously" and investigating. But another worker was unhappy it took so long for action to be taken, saying the inci- dent was reported before Christ- mas and not escalated until Janu- ary: "Shop fl oor banter has got to this stage and it is a regular occur- rence... If you don't deal with an issue, then it will keep raising its ugly head." HEATING UP THE ROMANCE VENTURA, CALIF. — An on- duty fi refi ghter actually started a "fi re" recently as part of an elabo- rate marriage proposal in Ven- tura, Calif. Zach Steele placed six smoke machines in the attic of a house he shared with his girl- friend and then went off to work, according to the Huffi ngton Post. He set the machines off remotely and soon tons of smoke began spewing out of the house. His girlfriend's mother — who knew about the prank — then called 911, so Steele and his fi re crew came to the rescue. He took off his oxygen mask and proposed — as seen in body camera footage from a colleague. "I was so confused and I honestly could not sort through my emotions enough to really comprehend what was happening," said fi ancée Maddi- son Ridgik. "When he got down on one knee, I was so emotional. I was still shaking and crying, yet so excited… It was truly the best, most indescribable moment of my life." HUMANS 1, ROBOTS 0 SASEBO, JAPAN — e world's fi rst robot hotel has decided hu- mans, for the most part, make the most sense when it comes to staff - ing. Japan's Henn na or "Strange" Hotel opened to much publicity in 2015 but has since "laid off " half of its 243 androids, accord- ing to the Wall Street Journal. "It's easier now that we're not being frequently called by guests to help with problems with the robots," said one staff member. One guest, for example, kept being woken by a doll-shaped "assistant" in his room because it mistook his snores for queries. And there were no phones in the rooms because "Churi" was meant to answer all questions from guests. e same was true for concierge robots who could not answer many of the guests' questions. And two robot luggage carriers are no longer being used because they could only reach two dozen of the more than 100 rooms. " ey were really slow and noisy, and would get stuck trying to go past each other," said guest Taishi Mito. However, a mechanical arm that moves luggage in and out of storage boxes is still being used. And Hideo Sawada, president of the travel company that owns the hotel, said he has learned some valuable lessons: "When you actually use robots, you realize there are places where they aren't needed — or just annoy people." Vol. 32 No. 2 – February 2019 PUBLISHED BY Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd. Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 ©Copyright 2019 by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. CANADIAN HR REPORTER is published 12 times a year. Publications Mail – Agreement # 40065782 Registration # 9496 – ISSN 0838-228X Director, Media Solutions, Canada: Karen Lorimer - (416) 649-9411 karen.lorimer@thomsonreuters.com EDITORIAL Publisher/Editor in Chief: Todd Humber - (416) 298-5196 todd.humber@thomsonreuters.com Editor/Supervisor: Sarah Dobson - (416) 649-7896 sarah.dobson@thomsonreuters.com News Editor Marcel Vander Wier - (416) 649-7837 marcel.vanderwier@thomsonreuters.com Employment Law Editor: Jeffrey R. 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Address changes and returns: Send changes and undeliverable Canadian addresses to: SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Canadian HR Reporter One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd. Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 CUSTOMER SERVICE Call: (416) 609-3800 (Toronto) (800) 387-5164 (outside Toronto) Email: customersupport. legaltaxcanada@tr.com LETTERS TO THE EDITOR todd.humber@thomsonreuters.com CHRR reserves the right to edit for length and clarity. Todd Humber EDiTOR'S NOTeS When does employer liability start? I f one of your hiring managers sexually harasses — or even assaults — a job candidate during the interview process or pre-employment testing, can your organization be held liable? That question came up last month after the CBC broke a sto- ry about three female RCMP of- fi cers alleging they were sexually assaulted by a male RCMP doctor — two before they were hired, the third while applying for a promo- tion. e alleged behaviour in- cluded inappropriate breast and vaginal exams. e power the doctor had over the women is unquestionable — the medical exam was the last step in the hiring process, and was all that stood between them and their dream of joining the national po- lice force or getting a promotion. e women applied for com- pensation from a previous RCMP sexual abuse settlement, but two of the recruits were denied money because they weren't employees at the time of the medical exams. In any sexual harassment or as- sault case, the perpetrator would clearly be responsible for his ac- tions. But, for employers, the question of liability isn't as clear- cut as you may think. "( e plaintiff ) would have to show that there's a reasonableness aspect, that the employer owed them a duty of care and that there was some type of foreseeability that this might occur," said Kath- erine Ford, manager of knowledge management at Sherrard Kuzz in Toronto. " at can sometimes be the diffi cult piece." At issue is a 2017 Court of Ap- peal for Ontario ruling — Ivic v. Lakovic — involving an intoxi- cated woman who was allegedly sexually assaulted by a cab driver. e appeal court upheld a lower court ruling that the taxi company was not liable for the actions of the driver. e court relied on the principles established in an earlier Supreme Court of Canada ruling, known as Bazley v. Curry. "A wrong that is only coinci- dentally linked to the activity of the employer and duties of the employee cannot justify the im- position of vicarious liability on the employer," it said, adding that would serve almost no deterrent and essentially relegate "the em- ployer to the status of an involun- tary insurer." What a court needs to see is a strong correlation between what the employer was asking its em- ployee to do and the misdeed. "It must be possible to say that the employer significantly in- creased the risk of harm by put- ting the employee in his or her position and requiring him to perform the assigned tasks," said the court in Bazley. That might be a difficult ar- gument to make in the case of a hiring manager, with no crimi- nal record and no history of sexual harassment, who acted inappropriately. "If it's somebody who's kind of a directing mind — the manager or owner or something like that — then the employer does defi nitely increase their risk of being liable for that person's conduct," said Ford. "Frankly, most of the time, when you're talking in an inter- view context, it's going to be that senior person." ere's also a danger that if a candidate can prove she wasn't hired because she rebuffed an unwanted sexual advance, there could be liability for discrimina- tion in the hiring process. e simple fact, as pointed out by the Supreme Court of Canada in Jacobi v. Griffi ths, is that society has already put strict punishments in place for sexual assault: " ere may be little an employer can do in reality to deter such conduct in its employees if the possibility of 10 years in jail is not suffi cient." So, what should employers do? ere are some obvious solutions. Last year, when I was at the Soci- ety for Human Resource Manage- ment's annual conference in Chi- cago, I spoke with a vendor who said some of his clients were plac- ing cameras in interview rooms to deter misbehaviour. Ford said she didn't have any legal concerns with that tactic, "so long that everybody consents and understands that is what's happening." But it's not a panacea. e court in Ivic pointed out that even if taxi companies were forced to install cameras to monitor drivers' be- haviour, the cameras could still be shut off or the assault could take place outside the cab. My mom had a better solution. An elementary school teacher, she had a blanket policy — she would never be alone with a student. That's a best HR practice, too. ere are rarely good reasons to have one-on-one interviews. "I actually think more employ- ers are moving towards having multi-party interviews, so that people understand what was said, but also to have two people taking a look at a potential candidate for compatibility with the organiza- tion," said Ford. Employers still need to do ev- erything they can to eliminate sexual harassment and assault in their workplaces — whether it in- volves customers, job candidates or employees. But it's interesting to note that courts have set the bar surpris- ingly high when it comes to shift- ing liability for egregious conduct from the off ending employee to the company itself. Credit: omnimoney (Shutterstock) W EIRD ORKPLACE THE e Vatican's Swiss Guard, a mini-army that helps protect the Pope, hope to have cooler heads now they have swapped their ancient metal helmets for ones made by 3D printers, according to Reuters. e new headgear is made of thermoplastic and looks almost exactly the same as the previous versions. But the force of 110 men should fi nd the covering more comfortable Credit: omnimoney (Shutterstock)

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